Shani Shahmoon, the Daily Bruin, and Hasbara for the Kiddies

Hasbara Club News – By Michael Hess. This article was written as a response to a misguided and frankly nuts article that appeared in the Daily Bruin by Shani Shahmoon who mistakenly believes that by just talking through evil, it can be appeased. This is my answer:

Student columnist Shani Shahmoon for the Daily Bruin.

Student columnist Shani Shahmoon for the Daily Bruin.[/caption]I see the problem. You think there is still a valid reason for the state of Israel to steal the rest of Palestine when there was not a valid reason in the first place. The side of this debate who holds human rights as a must and the rule of law says they will dialogue:

“…based on unambiguous recognition of Palestinian rights and framed within the explicit context of opposition to occupation and other forms of Israeli oppression of the Palestinians.”

And the side who supports Apartheid, War Crimes and the longest running Crime Against Humanity in modern times then tries to tar and feather the entirety of world Jewry claiming that human rights and the rule of law is really:

“…anti-Semitism, anti-Semitic forms of anti-Zionism and other forms of discrimination.”

This is brain dead. It is an upending of more than a century of human rights law and evolution of the laws of war AND it is a Blood Libel for some crazy college kids and the adults that encourage them following a crazed ideology to simply ignore reality and blame all the Jews on this planet for the serial human rights violations of successive Israeli governments. This in a state that has only existed since 1948 as the end of, and answer to, Zionism. There is no longer a need for this ideology. Israel got its state. The problem is that is not enough, Israel wants all of Palestine and there is absolutely no guarantee that it does not want more (18 year occupation of Lebanon, theft of the Golan Heights by war etc).

In short, it seems more than anything a mental disorder. This student seems to be infected with some sort of extremist ideology that clouds reality. So-called “alternative dialogue” is never in a million years going to change the reality of this conflict.

Israel accepted borders under UNGA 181. They were not good enough (for them) and copious evidence (Plan Dalet) suggests that this was a lie, a ploy, simply a way to get a foot in the door and then take the rest by force and Ethnic Cleansing (1967 war that Israel started).

Palestine in the time of Saul 1020 BCE.

Palestine in the time of Saul 1020bc[/caption]Force by the way that did NOT begin with the declaration of the state of Israel under UNGA 181. It began with a policy statement by the British government in order to get Zionist help for the war effort during the first world war.

The Balfour Declaration of 1917. From the very beginning the British mandate was never going to mean all of Palestine was to be converted into a Jewish national home. Student just like this one were answered in 1922, ninety-four years ago, by none other than Winston Churchill that only a portion of Palestine was destined to be set aside for a Jewish State that seems rather incongruous in the more modern reality of Islamic State. (At that time two months before the Palestine Mandate was formalized.)

It is clear to much of the world that the Jewish State has for many decades used the tactics of Islamic State to accomplish expansion of the territory of Israel in ways completely contrary to the rule of law and common decency. (Article 2, paragraph 4 of the UN Charter, ‘territory acquired by war is inadmissible’ and Article 49, paragraph 6 of the 4th Geneva Convention to name just two.)

This student would do well to research the fact that officials in the nascent provisional Israeli government promised in front of the UN Security Council to abide by international law and then promptly did otherwise taking over West Jerusalem and more.

When a chance was seen to take the rest by force, this was done. And the conflict has grown ever since.

The rule of law has been dashed upon the rocks of political expediency and the ideology of people who will do anything, commit any crime, and then lie about it through Hasbara, or supposed “explanation” of War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity. (Alternative dialogue.)

When a prone and injured Palestinian was shot in the head in cold-blooded murder the other day most Zionists cheered and clamored for more.

This is the ideology that seeks to defend this conflict through a religio-cultural lens and blame all Jews on this planet for these crimes. A person who thinks “pro-Israel” means that all Jews should be held personally responsible for the crimes of the state of Israel against the Palestinians dating back a hundred years.

Dialogue is not going to end this. Justice and the rule of law will end it. It is too bad that President Obama has let down both American Jews and the Palestinians so badly. If nothing else, news from the bully pulpit from him making it clear that American Jews are not to be blamed or held accountable for crimes committed by a brutal Apartheid state across the world will not be borne by Jews in this country, would at least set clear lines of demarcation.

By not doing so it lets young misguided minds like Shani here mistakenly believe that this can all be ‘talked out’ and everyone just needs to shake it off and the human rights crimes that have been committed against millions of innocent Palestinians on their own land in their own nation that existed as a state twenty-four years before Israel, will be forgotten and assuaged.

That’s not how life works. By encouraging students like Shani to believe in fairy tales, the Palestinians will continue to suffer and eventually every single Jew on this planet from Jerry Seinfeld to the those in my family will be held to blame for these crimes even though they are blameless and never danced around at a wedding brandishing automatic weapons shouting ‘death to the Arabs’ and stabbing a photo of a little baby girl..

Thankfully many other American Jews are finally speaking out and getting away from such insanity. Would that Shani spend some time as a Palestinian living under the illegal occupation that she holds so dear, as being “pro-Israel,” and watch Palestinians being summarily executed for the crime of being a Palestinian in Palestine, spend some time with the Chief Rabbis who claim that all gentiles exist only to serve (Israeli) Jews – and learn what is the root problem of this evil.

It’s the illegal occupation of Palestine Shani Shahmoon. If you don’t know, now you know. Stop blaming the world’s Jews for the crimes of successive Israeli governments. That is the true antisemitism.

P.S. You were right about one thing. It is a one-sided conflict. One side has nuclear weapons and the finest modern weaponry and munitions that the American taxpayer can buy, and the other side has rocks and children with knives. It’s time to grow up, take responsibility, and stop defending evil that is destroying the very fabric of ethical Judaism. Even AIPAC figured out that equation (finally, maybe).

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I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet.

"His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."

I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.

"A census of Palestine conducted by the Mandatory government on 23 October 1922. Population figures in the census featured a breakdown by district of residence, religion, language and age.

The total population of Palestine was given as 757,182, of whom 590,890 (78%) were Muslims (“Mohammedans”), 83,794 (11%) Jews, 73,024 (9%) Christians and 9,474 others. The population of Jerusalem was given as 62,578, of whom 13,413 were Muslims, 33,971 Jews, 14,699 Christians and 495 others." From the report:

"In accordance with the provisions of the Proclamation of 1st September 1922, published in the Official Gazette of the same date, a census of Palestine was held on the night of the twenty-second -- twenty-third of October, 1922."

"(1) To those colonies and territories which as a consequence of the late war have ceased to be under the sovereignty of the States which formerly governed them and which are inhabited by peoples not yet able to stand by themselves under the strenuous conditions of the modern world, there should be applied the principle that the well-being and development of such peoples form a sacred trust of civilisation and that securities for the performance of this trust should be embodied in this Covenant...

(4) Certain communities formerly belonging to the Turkish Empire have reached a stage of development where their existence as independent nations can be provisionally recognized subject to the rendering of administrative advice and assistance by a Mandatory until such time as they are able to stand alone. The wishes of these communities must be a principal consideration in the selection of the Mandatory..."

-- Avalon Project at Yale Law School, "The Covenant of the League of Nations, Including Amendments adopted to December, 1924, June 28th, 1919," Lillian Goldman Law Library. (accessed December 2nd, 2016).